Moon Blast As Futuristic Weapons Development

While appropriate to have a bit of fun over the recent man made "explosion" on the Moon, having recently watched a Cable TV special on advanced weaponry, it would be foolish to dismiss it for the research value I imagine it gave the military with regard to the development of advanced weapons system currently imagined for deployment in Space. Also see link below.

Orbital bombardment is the act of attacking targets on a planet, moon or other such object from orbit around the object, rather than from an aircraft, or a platform beyond orbit. It is most often encountered in fiction, but has been proposed as a means of attack for several real-world weapons systems concepts, including kinetic bombardment and as a nuclear delivery system.

Having watched the special, the staged crash was very much in line with what many believe will be a very effective and practical weapon for Space. One doesn't need fueled explosions. Without atmosphere, the kinetic energy alone is enough to create damage several times greater than today's nuclear weapons. Danger Room: Heh!

We all know that the Pentagon has more space weapons technology in mind than just a single, satellite-shooting missile. But trying to pin down how much the Defense Department is spending on space combat research — and on what projects — is an absolute bitch. The programs are spread across at least a dozen different accounts; much of the technology involved is "dual use" — meaning, it could help with another military matters, too; and that’s before you get into the Defense Department’s "black," classified budget.

Comments

[.Jack Okie]

"Rods from God": This concept was published in Popular Science in 2004. Link:

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-06/rods-god

Space will be militarized, just like every other environment where military force can be useful. China will certainly do this, regardless of what we do. Let's hope we don't lag behind.

[PA]

Space was militarized well over 20 years ago. I think it was the 4th or 5th Shuttle flight that flew with all military crew and classified mission/cargo.

We (I was at Rockwell's space division in Downey CA at the time) had to write some programs that would erase the memory boards in the onboard computers before the hatch was opened upon landing. The memory boards were actual magnet core memory, which is nonvolatile by nature, and exhibits some hysteresis behavior, so a single pass erase wasn't sufficient to really scrub them.

[SDN]

Jack, Jerry Pournelle proposed "Rods from God" 30+ years ago. He called it Mjölnir,after Thor's hammer.